Modernism continues to play a huge role in education's enduring linear approach towards curriculum. The core curriculum courses, English and Math, are given top priority. The priority of these content areas is aided further by the constant slashing of budgets in aesthetic courses such as music, arts, dance, poetry, and band. The dramatic decrease in these aesthetic courses, and others, has also been attributed to the growing emphasis on standardization and high stakes testing (Smith & Rottenberg, 1991; US Department of Education, 2002). The marginalization of the arts in today's classrooms has limited the resources teachers and administrators have for developing students, both socially and emotionally. The loss of this valuable tool in student development has prompted many in the postmodern education movement to question the importance of an aesthetic and arts based curriculum. To postmodernists, courses of this type are the heart of any postmodern curriculum and allow students to explore what Pinar and Grumet refer to as "synthetical moments" (as cited in Slattery, 2006, p. 242).
No Child Left Behind Political Cartoon
For Slattery (2006), the synthetical moment is a "synthesizing moment” where “there is a reconstruction of the self and an experience of solidarity of the intellect" (p. 242). In aesthetic inquiry, arts-based research, and the proleptic moment, Slattery (2006) provides seven approaches to explore curriculum development from a postmodern aesthetic perspective. To help us understand the importance of an art-based postmodern curriculum, Slattery develops these seven approaches through art, research, and philosophies of viewing education. The seven approaches include; "a review of postmodern art and architectural movements and their impact on society and culture, along with their political implications; a study of the interrelationship between postmodern philosophies and art; an analysis of texts that have provided a transition from the dominant quantitative paradigms of evaluation in schooling toward an aesthetic and qualitative understanding of curriculum and instruction; a study of the correspondences between aesthetic experiences and curriculum; a review of the phenomenological literature that understands knowledge as a human construction and social life as an enacted, meaning-embedded experience, inseparable from human beliefs, values, and creativity; an exploration of notions of knowledge acquisition and of thinking that are distinct from mainstream social and behavioral science; and understanding curriculum through arts-based educational research" (Slattery, 2006, p. 241-242). These approaches help lead to an understanding of an aesthetic postmodern curriculum.
Aesthetic Curriculum
A postmodern aesthetic curriculum focuses more on experiences that affirm an individual's creativity and uniqueness rather than on methodology to create "synthetic moments". Contrary to modern paradigms in curriculum, which focus "on rational discourse, time on task, lesson implementation, and objective evaluation," postmodernism places importance on dramatic, artistic, non-rational, and intuitive qualities within a person while learning (Slattery, 2006, p. 243). Currently, our society prioritizes mathematics, science, and reading as "the core of the curriculum" and neglects the heart of curriculum: "music, fine arts, drama, dance, poetry, speech, band, and painting" (Slattery, 2006, p. 243). Postmodern education encourages aesthetic reflections from the heart in educational inquiry. What would our educational institutions look like if curriculum leaders and teachers were "encouraged to recapture a poetic wisdom, to be suspicious of comfortable routines, to create provacative learning relationships, to see appreciation and affirmative engagement as a core task and to value wonder over suspicion, surrender over defensiveness and listening and attunement over self-promotion?" (Barrett, 2000, p. 244).
Aesthetic postmodern curriculum emphasizes learning through experiences because it encourages many possibilities without any restrictions. Like improvisation in jazz music, postmodern curriculum stresses the importance of spontaneity, in which "inspectional and clinical models" are replaced with "experiential" and "metaphorical reflection," as well as aesthetic inquiry (Slattery, 2006, p. 244). Educators become like jazz improvisers, who "cultivate an aesthetic that senses the dynamic unfolding of creative human action and appreciates the emergent, incomplete, mistake-ridden nature of human activity that often in retrospect leads to coherent, creative production. . . . what is appropriate for grasping social complexity is an aesthetic of the dynamics of unfolding, an aesthetic that values surrender, appreciation, trust and attunement as seeds that sprout dynamic, novel social action" (Barrett, 2000, p. 241). It requires building a common shared reality in search of the "self" within experiences. "Qualitative inquiry and research cannot be planned using modern concepts of positivism, nor can it be imposed uniformly upon students with statistical certainty" (Slattery, 2006, p. 244). For example, curriculum could be enhanced with artwork incorporating clay. However, with professional studio training the young artists could improve their work with clay, which in turn would place “art educators in a very good position to contribute to the generation of knowledge in this area that could help guide improvement in classroom practice” (Kindler, 2004, p. 230).
As educators, it is very important that students become capable of reflecting, analyzing, and discovering the world through different means; but in order for students to do so, curriculum leaders, according to Slattery (2006), "must begin by replacing inspectional and clinical models with experiential, autobiographical, and metaphorical reflection that utilizes multi- and extrasensory phenomena and perceptions.....to expand our understanding of the whole educative moment" (p. 244). To expand on Slattery’s thoughts, Clair Golomb, a psychologist with a long standing interest in the visual arts, conducted research on the origins of children’s use of clay in three dimensional art with children who had never before used clay to create actual sculptures with representational intent (Kindler, 2004). Golomb also noted that young children possess three-dimensional understanding versus lacking intellectual maturity according to other theories of young children and their creating art utilizing clay (Kindler, 2004). From the research, Golomb concluded that children merely lack the experience with the medium, practice, and the technical skills of working with clay (Kindler, 2004).
To support Golomb’s findings that young children possess a basic understanding of three dimensional art, Maxine Greene believed that all educators should integrate the arts into all levels of education (Slattery, 2006). Moreover, Yvonna Lincoln did not believe that students were “empty vessels” (as cited in Slattery, 2006, p. 255), and Max van Manen believed that, as summarized by Slattery (2006), students are “capable of rich inner lives and that their experience is worth eliciting and building on” (p. 255). What each educator, from Golomb to van Manen, was trying to say is that children as students, no matter what age, have the capability to learn and to use the arts as a method of expanding on their capacities to “reflect, analyze, and discover the world through different means” (Slattery, 2006). The following video is an example of how a school in New York used the creative classroom program to include art education into the curriculum. As a result, students have increased their knowledge, inquiry, and creativity.
Slattery (2006) expands upon Eisner's beliefs that through aesthetic learning a new zone of cognition must be entered where the big picture is of greatest importance, rather than all the small pieces that lead to the whole experience. In other words, the whole is "greater than the sum of" all the parts (Slattery, 2006, p. 244). He believed that the true measure of quality was based on the aesthetic experience. As teachers, we cannot simply grade students using worksheets and tests. Student learning should be based on their experiences and what develops based on those experiences. For educational inquiry to be complete, better modes of interpretation and description must be done as well as a deeper look into curriculum and instruction. Slattery (2006) used Eisner's writings to convey the idea that inclusion of aesthetic and qualitative approaches to inquiry "will contribute to the improvement of educational practice by giving us a fuller, more complex understanding of what makes schools and classrooms tick" (as cited in Slattery, 2006, p. 245)
Elliot W. Eisner
In the article "Elliot W. Eisner, Connoisseurship, Criticism and the Art of Education", Smith (2005) discusses the importance of the teacher viewing teaching as an expression of art. Eisner believes that the way educators draw from different techniques to fit a particular situation is thinking in action (Smith, 2005). This ability to improvise a particular situation is what makes educators artists (Smith, 2005). Aesthetic postmodern curriculum can be very complex to understand and requires educators to view curriculum from a variety of perspectives. It allows students to explore and reflect. Only then can a postmodern aesthetic curriculum truly exist. Understanding aesthetic experiences is difficult for those in modern society who "conform to the logic of positivism, behaviorism, rationalism, and structural analysis," rather than synthetical experiences of "an aesthetic vision" (Slattery, 2006, p. 245). However, "wide-awakenness", a term coined by Maxine Greene, can bring self-understanding from the synthetical moments while engaged within a piece of artwork (Slattery, 2006, p. 252).
Postmodern curriculum moves away from the idea of the linear model of teaching and focuses completely on the individual and self-reflecting experiences of each individual. Slattery (2006) supports this statement when he states that "knowledge is not logically ordered and waiting to be discovered; rather, it is constructed in experiences of the whole body and being" (p.246). Instead, "the experience of disturbance, perturbation, contemporaneousness, or synthetical moments will inspire students to read, to research, to explore, to learn, to mediate, and to expand their understanding of the initial experience" (Slattery, 2006, p.246).
It is important to address the issue that if schools want to prepare students to be successful citizens, they must not forget that it is just as important to help students become human beings who are able to enjoy the existence of beauty around the world. Slattery (2006) explains the following: "The postmodern world demands awareness of the environment and openness to the deep ecology of learning" (p. 252). Students must be able to learn how to perceive the world in a different way and that language and communication goes beyond being able to speak. They must know that the art of expression has infinite resources, and by using the aesthetic curriculum, educators are providing students with the opportunity to enter a world full of learning. Slattery presents a quote from traditionalist Mortimer Adler to explain the importance of the learning environment in education: "Our concern with education goes beyond schooling...education is a lifelong process of which schooling is only a small part. Schooling should open the doors to the world of learning" (as cited in Slattery, 2006, p. 252). Herbert Kliebard warns that if arts-based subjects continue to decline, art expression and appreciation will be a domain understood by few humans. "The arts - music, painting, sculpture, poetry - [are] the highest forms of expression by which human beings convey their experience and their aspirations" (Kliebard, 1992a, p.3).
Peter Gamwell conducted an action research study asking: How do students create meaning through art experiences? In this study he found firsthand the benefits of implementing an arts-based curriculum. Much like the benefits seen in student learning when Gardner's multiple intelligences are applied within a curriculum, the theory of students' multiple intelligences serve as the guiding framework for arts-based classroom curriculum (Gamwell, 2005). Allowing students to excel in areas of interest and in learning styles that facilitate their academic understanding, art-based curriculum gives students the freedom to self-reflect through fine arts. Arts-based curriculum emphasizes students' experiences which have implications on a student's classroom practice (Gamwell, 2005). In referencing arts-based curriculum, Sylwester states, "[It] drives attention which drives learning and memory" (as cited in Gamwell, 2005, p. 361). When a student is engaged and immersed in an activity, their state of mind is active and their attention becomes undivided, thus enabling their intrinsic motivation to learn and explore (Gamwell, 2005). Therefore, the connection to emotional engagement is vital in an arts-based learning environment (Gamwell, 2005).
Examples of Arts-Based Activities
Students can interpret poetry through movement or dance and can then create dramatic interpretations of short stories. The art of dance can serve as a catalyst for creative writing assignments. Another example of an art-based activity is seen in soundtrack stories. In soundtrack stories students interpret a piece of music and write about it (Gamwell, 2005). Activism in art is another example of using aesthetics in arts-based curriculum (Springgay, 2010).
Cultivating an appreciative way of knowing is an act of cultivating an aesthetic way of knowing, an aesthetic that values sensory awareness, perceptual acuity, attunement, wonderment, novelty, and emergence. Perhaps more importantly, an aesthetic way of knowing appreciates the awkward spaces existing between chaos and order, complexity and simplicity, certainty and uncertainty, to name a few dialectical relationships. Just as with the dialectical relationship of theory and practice, both entities are valued equally. However, if one should have an edge over the other, it would be practice over theory, for practice without theory is active and relevant, whereas theory without practice is abstract and lacking significance. It is in this in-between space, the and or the /(slash) that an aesthetic way of knowing unfolds in/sight into curriculum. It is in this in-between space that chaos is appreciated alongside order, complexity alongside simplicity, and uncertainty alongside certainty. These complex spaces are attuned to invention and the possibility of poetic wisdom. Our minds and bodies are inseparable, making perceptual awareness simultaneously felt, imagined and abstract. We actively create knowledge through sensing, feeling and thinking. Through the aesthetics of attunement, unfolding, and/or surrender, we linger in dynamic in-between spaces (Irwin, 2003).
Postmodern Artists and Their Expression of History
In an attempt to better understand his ideas of an aesthetic curriculum, Slattery (2006) shared his personal experiences of several art pieces. He sets out to explain the idea behind synthetic moments that self-realization can lead to. His first reflection was on the story of Autumn Rhythm by Jackson Pollock (1950).
Jackson Pollock
Autumn Rhythm by Jackson Pollock.
Slattery discusses how he first began to understand the postmodern aesthetic perspective through Pollock’s painting, Autumn Rhythm.
He describes how he felt a new experience upon viewing the painting. Slattery uses this story to show how an aesthetic experience can give someone a greater understanding
of self. It also shows how aesthetic inquiry can ignite students with a passion that they previously had not known existed just as Slattery started buying any book he could find on Pollock. "Knowledge is not logically ordered and waiting to be discovered; rather, it is constructed in experiences of the whole body and being" (Slattery, 2006, p. 246). Aesthetic experiences provide access to knowledge that other subjects of schooling cannot reach. As Suzuki, Fromm, and DeMartino suggest, “[t]he intellect may raise all kinds of questions – but to expect a final answer from the intellect is asking too much of it. The answer lies deeply buried under the bedrock of our being” (as cited in Slattery, 2006, p. 246). The study of art, music, poetry, or dance does not necessarily answer academic questions but it may touch students on a deeper, more personal level than other media and inspire a search for understanding in many areas of a student's life.
Slattery uses the works of Edward and Nancy Kienholz as an inspiration to create yet another synthetic moment. In 1972, Edward and Nancy Kienholz started working together; prior to this, Edward Kienholz worked alone (Slattery, 2006). The Kienholz's artistic popularity and purpose can be compared to Raskin's insights about the Beat poets, who "raged against a nation that by all outward appearances was content with itself and ostensibly relieved of the burden of self-reflection" (as cited in Slattery, 2006, p. 247). Kienholz's work is purposeful, and invokes feelings of empathy and guilt within the viewer of his work (Bulmer, nd).
Edward and Nancy Kienholz Portrait
With the concern of liberation of human beings and the contradictions between national policies and the military economy, Kienholz focused his work on revealing the contradictions and inspiring ethical reflection in the current global crisis (Slattery, 2006). "Inspired by their shared vision of the prophetic nature of their work, they created assemblages to express their outrage over child abuse, war, poverty, religious hypocrisy, sexism, and violence against Native Americans and other indigenous minority cultures" (Slattery, 2006, p. 247). They used common household items and industrial waste materials as medium for their work.
Edward and Nancy Kienholz are most well known for their work on John Doe and Jane Doe. "The images enabled them to assume the role of the prophet and challenge those who view their art to consider important social issues such as gender roles, violence, and subjugation" (Slattery, 2006, p. 248). One of the important aspects of art-based curriculum is self-reflection. Slattery (2006) discusses his self-reflection moment as he viewed these two art works. Part of the aesthetic curriculum is the connection that viewers make with experiences outside of the norm. This dimensionality allows the observer to interact with the piece and step away from what Suzi Gablik calls the "subject-object separation" found in most contemporary art (cited in Slattery, 2006, p. 248). Not only does the observer become the participant, it evokes an intense and ironic juxtaposition in a postmodern sense.
Edward and Nancy Kienholz (Bulmer, nd): John Doe
Moreover, educators must not view Keinholzs' art or any other art for that matter, only from their self-reflective perspective; they must find ways to educate their students in the art (pardon the pun) of self-reflection when viewing art. Educators can integrate an art lesson into their curriculum based on Keinholzs' art and compare the art to the gender roles in the United States in the 1950s, and still keep within the standards of the TEKS. For example, Section 113.41, Subsection 17; B, expects students to “identify the causes and effects of the prosperity in the 1950s" (Texas Education Agency, 2011). Educators could assign the students to compare the Keinholzs’ John Doe and Jane Doe to the lifestyles of the 1950s and how the current United States History textbook refers to the lifestyle that men were hardworking driven breadwinners and the women tended to the domestic home front (cooking, cleaning, having babies, etc.) (Danzer, G.A., Klor de Alva, J.J., Woloch, N., Wilson, L.E., 2007). However, the textbook also presents that not all women during this era were happy in their homemaking roles (Danzer, G.A., Klor de Alva, J.J., Woloch, N., Wilson, L.E., 2007). This is where the art becomes relevant in the classroom because it now engages the students to reflect on their own lives and how they perceive the current role of men and women in their lives. Some may still believe a woman’s place is in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant, and others may believe that a woman has just as much right to achieve business, political, and religious success, often only afforded to men.
Lot's Wife: Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 1990.8
Anselm Kiefer’s Lots Frau
Born in Germany two months before the end of World War II, Anselm Kiefer grew up during a time of continued German xenophobia, and shame, which shaped his view and desire to “ponder and deconstruct those aspects of twentieth-century German history that many would like to forget” (Slattery, p.248).
Anselm Kiefer
Often working in the mediums of lead, tar, straw, and clay, all of which metaphorically represent the land of Germany, his pieces are often filled with cultural, political, and religious symbolism. Lot’s Frau is a piece inspired by the biblical tale found in the Book of Genesis in which Lot’s wife is turned into a pillar of salt after turning to witness the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. The image itself is dark and foreboding. When viewed through a historical perspective the scorched landscape of converging railroad tracks, with billows of smoke hanging ominously in the air easily bring to mind the tragedy of the Holocaust. The work can also be used to magnify a more modern tragedy when viewed as an environmental warning. Upon viewing Lot’s Frau we are meant to become Lot’s wife, and are reminded that “an attempt to erase the memory, to walk forward without looking back and becoming salt, that is most dangerous” (Slattery, 2006, p.249). "The artwork of Anselm Kiefer deconstructs educational, political, and social structures that have created such surveillance and sought to extinguished the passion for justice" (Slattery, 2006, p. 252). Kiefer's work allows patrons to deconstruct disturbing memories, and allows them to develop new and more fully formed understandings of “the self in relation to memories” (Slattery, 2006, p. 250).
Jack Johnson
Untitled (Skull)
La Columbia
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat's work "delineates the violence that results when the culture and traditions of a people are erased" (Slattery, 2006, p. 251). Drawing from his own life experiences, Basquiat addresses the larger human concerns that permeate throughout our world. In some of his more popular works like Jack Johnson (1982), Untitled (1982), and La Columbia (1983), Basquiat can be described as celebrating black culture. In these paintings, flesh on the black body is falling away and the figures have been worked to the bone (Slattery, 2006). Black men often appear in his paintings as deformed or mutilated, suggesting a sign of absence. According to hooks, "Basquiat's work gives that private anguish artistic expression" (as cited in Slattery, 2006, p. 250). This artist's work seems to transcend the individual and address broader social issues and themes. With that, the dualities that underlie his artistic strategy suggest his position as a black man in the art world.
Phenomenology
Phenomenology is another important aspect of aesthetic inquiry and arts-based education. "Phenomenology...is based on the assumption that we cannot speculate about what beings are in themselves. Rather, the emphasis should be placed on possibility and becoming as a goal of the curriculum, for human consciousness can never be static" (Slattery, 2006, p.254). Curriculum writers, in other words, should always consider the learner and its possibility for success. The purpose of phenomenology is not to describe phenomena, but to understand the core meaning of its origins. Jean-Paul Sartre has argued that human consciousness (described as "being-for-itself") is such that it is an activity rather than a thing of substance (described as "being-in-itself") which is why possibility should be at the center of educational inquiry (Slattery, 2006, p. 254). A person in itself should be able to have diverse possibilities within a curriculum. “Phenomenology is a philosophy of consciousness that seeks description of how the world is experienced by persons" (Slattery, 2011, p. 8). Therefore, in developing meaning of personal experience we add to it new experiences that, in turn, shape all future possibilities based on previous personal experience. Although present moments reflect past experiences, each new moment is also charged with possibilities for new directions and new beginnings for all learners. For this reason it is extremely important that from the earliest years in education, students are allowed to express themselves through art. Students should not be assigned to perform different tasks following specific directions; on the contrary, teachers and other adults should move out of the way and let children express and experiment with the endless possibilities that art education can offer.
In John Dewey’s Art as Experience, he explains how the aesthetic experience can stimulate new personal realizations (Slattery, 2006). He describes how a work of art can be "re-created every time it is aesthetically
John Dewey
experienced" through the eyes of an individual and how that experience can inspire self-realization (Slattery, 2006, p. 254). Dewey's explanation favors the students in our current education system by explaining to those who are not in a classroom that experience and creativity go hand in hand. Therefore, school districts must create ways to bring that experience to life. For example, it may not be as meaningful teach the students about Texas history and the Battle of the Alamo, but to factor in a field trip to the mission so that the students may absorb the physical structure as a living, breathing work of art. Moreover, the experience will support Dewey’s example of how a work of art can be "re-created" with each individual experience (Slattery, 2006, p.254). This in turn would develop the students’ sense of connection to the Texas history lesson, versus just reading about it in a book or seeing it on a standardized exam. Pablo Picasso refers to artistic creation similarly in his description of a picture as an ever-changing final product. He explains art creation as a process by which a picture is developed and changed as the artist's thoughts develop and change (Slattery, 2006). Even as a finished product, a picture only survives through the eyes of the one who is looking at it; Picasso states, “A picture lives a life like a living creature, undergoing the changes imposed on us by our life from day to day” (as cited in Slattery, 2006, p. 254).
An important phenomenological dimension of postmodern aesthetics is the realization that we gain meaning from events as they are encountered subjectively wherein knowledge is constructed and reconstructed through every new experience. For example, a student's home environment should be taken into consideration since that is where most of their knowledge and experience are obtained. By this logic, Slattery (2006) claims that, “a work of art truly exists only in the encounter” and art, like the curriculum, is a cycle of "becoming and recreating in each new situation" (p. 254). Every student should be given the opportunity to receive an education that will assist them in their search to discover within themselves their most powerful force of expression. If art is an important aspect of education, then as teachers, it is important to provide students with experiences that will support their unique strengths, gifts and talents. Teachers should learn not only to tolerate, but to celebrate all those wonderful innate abilities students bring with them to the classroom. Moreover, teachers can support their students and their abilities by creating assignments that not only bring out their artistic talents, but also satisfy the curriculum as mandated in the respective levels of standardization. By doing this, teachers and students create a learning environment in which students will be able to develop their real talents and hopefully find a better experience in connecting to the the core curriculum. Max van Manen, among other contemporary phenomenologists, has supported this rejection and contends that students inhabit rich and vivid inner lives that include experiences worth building on (Slattery, 2006). Slattery summarizes van Manen's argument that, unlike common pedagogical perspectives, “pedagogy is a form of interactive relationships rather than a bag of tricks to be assembled in the teaching process” (Slattery, 2006, p. 255).
In its application to artistic-aesthetic expression, phenomenology has roots in Cubism (Slattery, 2006). It was abundant during the twentieth century, along with abstract expressionism, and is opposite to the traditional styles of the High Renaissance. More “traditional” understandings of art taught that the subject of a painting is decided before painting begins, with the goal of recreating a realistic representation of what was intended (Slattery, 2006). Cubism, however, involves the deconstruction, analysis, and reassembly of the subject matter, resulting in a faceted image that represents multiple viewpoints (Rewald, 2011).
Pablo Picaso. (1910). Girl with a Mandolin.
Like Cubism, phenomenology as an artistic expression focuses more on the process involved in creating a work. Artists should grow with their work and achieve their possible capabilities and come to a greater understanding of self. Art and education should be a process of “becoming” that allows for reflectiveness (Slattery, 2006, p. 255). In comparison to how a student thinks, one would compare the idea of allowing a painter to reflect upon his work of art, to a student's reflection of his own learning. Experiencing phenomenology as an artistic expression, as both an artist and an observer, causes a person to notice the same expressiveness in their own world (Slattery, 2006). In the classroom this knowledge of self can lead to a new opportunity to promote social change for both teachers and students, as it begins when individuals change. Indeed, creativity can still be a key trait for all students to inherit in their classrooms. As teachers and students go through this transformation in order to understand the self, new discussions about morality and social justice can begin. Moral education is not about teaching rules and regulations, but rather about teaching kids to know who they are in relation to those around them, as is appropriate for their age (Slattery, 2006).
"The content of the curriculum is the individual in the process of becoming that which he or she has not yet been but is capable of becoming… various disciplines become part of the form and content" (Slattery, 2006, p. 257). In the post-modern curriculum, inquiry and reflection merge with lecturing (Slattery, 2006). Teachers can no longer merely “feed" students content as this will not inspire or develop their creative and critical thinking. Therefore, students must interact with and question the content which they are learning to understand how the experience has changed them. Teachers can never feel that they are done learning and searching within themselves if they are to remain effective at inspiring students to continue learning (Slattery, 2006). In order for teachers to inspire students to be lifelong learners, they too must be lifelong learners. This also means that teachers must readily critique and reflect on their own teaching and strategies in the classroom, and allow students to do the same. Critical reflection is key to aesthetic experiences and leads to "praxis" - a knowing that becomes an opening to possibilities and empowerment (Slattery, 2006, p. 257). Praxis can be viewed as reflecting on what you have learned or experienced and then looking back to where your understanding of yourself began. In essence, teachers must also be willing to learn along with their students in order to experience inquiry learning.
The implication of aesthetics for the postmodern curriculum is that "transformation and learning are stimulated by a sense of future possibilities and sense of what might be" (Slattery, 2006, p. 257).The postmodern curriculum must include "an awareness and sensitivity toward many environments - physical, psychological, spiritual, and social" (Slattery, 2006, p. 258). Postmodern curriculum emphasizes "the primacy of experience, the merging of form and content, the recursion and convergence of time, the celebration of the self-conscious individual, and the understanding of the phenomenological experience" (Slattery, 2006, p. 258). Aesthetic media can be used to enhance the curriculum and encourage self-expression and reflection; in addition, it can encourage critical thinking and bring to light many social injustices. “Films, poetry, visual images, music, dance, drama, and literature are vehicles for engendering the jolt to the unconscious that leads to the autobiographical narrative which is essential if mere schooling is to become educative and transformative" (Slattery, 2006, p. 260).
"What Does Rape Have to Do with Education?"
Rape is one social issue that aesthetic pieces can effectively bring into awareness. Slattery (2006) discusses how it is important to point out that rape is not sex. “Rape is an act of violence, power, and degradation, not pleasure” (Slattery, 2006, p. 262). When asked, “What does rape have to do with education?” (Slattery, 2006, p. 259), Slattery contends that together we must “connect the dots between environmental degradation, violence, racism, lynchings, and child abuse if there is any hope for justice and proleptic experiences in our society, and in ourselves” (Slattery, 2006, p. 262). Rape, along with lynchings, such as child abuse, racism, and violence, are powerful negative motivators that inspire communications often through the arts. While these topics can often produce powerful, meaningful pieces, they are often avoided in the classroom. It is important to discuss these very personal pieces and give them an opportunity to bring about awareness. Also, we need to recognize that in many cases these abuses occur in our country, state, city, and even in some cases next door, not only in some far off land.
“The psychosexual dynamics of racial subjugation, gendered violence, political domination, and hegemonic curriculum management must be understood as a seamless and seamy logic. And a common denominator is rape” (Slattery, 2006, p. 261). Many things relate to education and curriculum, regardless of how irrelevant they seem to teaching. The mistreatment of the Earth and natural resources is also a form of environmental rape that is prevalent in society today. Most people in society never notice that we as humans are rapists as we dispose of our trash each day. We have a form of cultural psychosis that has allowed violent crimes to take place in front of cheering crowds. Also, promotion of wars and protests could always be blamed on the discontent of people and the inability to converse peacefully. It is necessary to look back on historical events, both good and bad, as well as the present happenings worldwide, to learn about injustices that are still constantly occurring. “Education must combat the ignorance that leads to this horrific injustice” (Slattery, 2006, p. 262). Rape and sexual trauma are sometimes associated with the very institutions that you would never associate with sex: schools, churches, and role models like coaches and Scout leaders (Slattery, 2006). “Repression of the body, sexual fantasies, uncontrollable sexual responses, and guilt and anxiety about sexuality are all part of the educational experience of students who sit in school desks,” making sex a valid educational topic (Slattery, 2006, p. 265). Slattery has created art pieces that demonstrate his childhood and his Catholic educational experience. Slattery connects religion and sex by using a play on words. He uses the word "ejaculation" to describe “short and spontaneous prayerful outbursts” that were encouraged in his Catholic school upbringing. One piece, titled 10,000 Ejaculations, uses 10,000 communion wafers to represent the prayerful ejaculations of his youth.
The Arts and Activism
Curriculum designers who promise that their products will increase test scores and obedient students are part of the reason that students today seem often incapable of being reflective and creative in their schooling and lives (Slattery, 2006). This normalizing of curriculum also creates a rift between the majority and the “others” who do not neatly fit into social constructs. One reason for having art in life and in schools is to make people aware of inequities and abuse in our world. Art is a powerful teaching tool and should be used frequently. Art allows a person to express what they are feeling and how they have processed a certain situation, event, or information they have received. Not only should students be allowed the opportunities to create art, but they must also be able to experience many art forms to help them better understand the world in which they live. “The goal of activism and teaching must be to uncover violence and abuse in all of its manifestations and work for justice and compassion in our schools and society” (268). Slattery discusses the importance of reviewing the past in order to build off it to move past it. This is true of individuals as well as society. One way that Slattery (2006) suggests we review the past is to examine racial and gender violence by reflecting on the staggering amount of lynchings that occurred in the U.S. in the early 20th century. Slattery (2006) also explains how he uses a documentary film that investigates lynchings and hate crimes and the fact that these events were celebrated by the white community. In addition to documentary films, Slattery (2006) shows the 2003 film Strange Fruit, which is based on a poem that was written by Abel Meeropol and made famous through the singing of Billie Holiday. Holiday's 1939 song poignantly exposes the lynching of African Americans and American racism. Once again, through art students are given an experience that causes them to reflect on their own thinking.
Racism and rape are two of those topics that we often avoid as educators. They are dark and sinister topics that shows how ugly one individual can be to another, but if we do not address those dark and sinister topics with our students then we do not bring awareness. There is a quote in the G.I. Joe cartoons that says, "And knowing is half the battle" (Wikipedia, 2011, Cartoon section, para. 2); if we educate and raise awareness then we have won half the battle. We must then win the other half by teaching our students to be advocates and work for justice.
In debating current topics and voicing opinions, activism as art is another form of aesthetic postmodern curriculum. Stephanie Springgay (2010) uses knitting as an "aesthetic civic engagement" through touch in efforts to reconceptualize feminist pedagogy (p.113). Activism as art examines resisting new youth subcultures. Activist knitting projects encourage political and/or interpersonal engagement that is connective. Projects of this type highlight ways one can reconceptualize feminist pedagogy. Feminist pedagogy may be typically viewed as dealing with feminist theory; however, it is the pedagogy that addresses civil and human rights from many different classes, cultures, and identities. Springgay (2010) advocates for activism as art through touch by implementing and engaging in knitting groups. Knitting groups or clubs are increasingly becoming popular among youth (Springgay, 2010). Youth citizenship can take place by students coming together and debating social issues, making social arrangements, and creating political forums, all while engaging in the pastime of knitting (Springgay, 2010). In activism as a form of arts-based curriculum, young people are able to reflect on their own subjectivity, imaginations, and their communities to, in turn, enable new conditions for living their lives (Springgay, 2010). Teachers can teach activism or reconceptualized gender roles through arts-based curriculum such as knitting.
Final Thoughts
Aesthetics stems from the Greek root word aisth, and especially the verb aisthànomai, to mean feeling through a heuristic act of perception. It holds, then, that curriculum specialists desiring an aesthetic approach to curriculum would be responsive to all aspects of a setting: smells, voices,shadows, silences, gestures, colours, placement of objects, glances, utterances, lighting, and so much more. Their attunement to others would be apparent through their presentation of ideas (or lessons or meetings) that arouse feelings, energy and interest in others. Together, teachers and students, or teachers and administrators, would linger in a sense of satisfaction or pleasure knowing that the decision(s) they made were, in essence, beautiful decisions (Irwin, 2003).
As an approach to learning environments, learning activities, and decision-making, an aesthetic of unfolding in/sights would allow for awareness of sensory appreciation and understanding. Rather than being preoccupied with explanations or rationales, educators would be closely attuned to their tacit knowledge, accepting that knowledge isn’t entirely verbal and thereby includes knowledge derived through one’s senses and intuition. Knowledge is created through these alternative forms of inquiry, and as educators, it seems that sensitizing ourselves to these ways of knowing opens up deeper understanding toward our day-to-day negotiations with others and ourselves (Irwin, 2003).
References
Barrett, F. J. (2000). Cultivating an aesthetic of unfolding: Jazz improvisation as a self-organizing system. In S. Linstead & H. Hopfl (Eds.), The aesthetics oforganization (pp. 228-245). London: Sage.
Basquait, Jean-Michel (1982). Jack Johnson. Retrieved from http://www.soho-art.com/cgi-bin/shop/shop.pl?fi...ction=form
Danzer, G.A., Klor de Alva, J.J., Woloch, N., Wilson, L.E. (2007). The Americans:Reconstruction to the 21st century. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell, (pp. 641 - 642).
Gamwell, P. (2005). Intermediate students' experiences with an arts-based unit: An action research. Canadian Journal of Education, vol. 28, pp. 359-383.
Irwin, R. L. (2003). Toward an aesthetic of unfolding in/sights through curriculum . Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies, 1(2),
Kindler, A.M. (2004). Introduction: Development and learning in art. In Eisner, E.W. & Day, M.D. Handbook of research and policy in art education (pp. 227-232). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Kliebard, Herbert. M. (1992a). Forgiving the American Curriculum: Essays in Currculum History and Theory. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Slattery, P. (2006). Curriculum development in the postmodern era, 2nd. Ed. New York: Routledge.
Slattery, P. (2011). Glossary of Terms. (unpublished document). Available on Blackboard.
Smith, M. K. (2005) Elliot W. Eisner, connoisseurship, criticism and the art of education. The Encyclopaedia of Informal Education. Retrieved from www.infed.org/thinkers/eisner.htm.
Smith, M. L. & Rottenberg, C. (1991), Unintended consequences of external testing in elementary schools. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 10: 7–11.
Springgay, S. (2010). Knitting as an aesthetic of civic engagement: Reconceptualizing feminist pedagogy through touch. Feminist Teacher, 20(2), 111-123.
U.S. Department of Education. (2002). Learning in the arts and student academic and social development. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
doi: 10.1111/j.1745-3992.1991.tb00210.x
Aesthetics and Arts-Based Curriculum
Table of Contents
Introduction
Modernism continues to play a huge role in education's enduring linear approach towards curriculum. The core curriculum courses, English and Math, are given top priority. The priority of these content areas is aided further by the constant slashing of budgets in aesthetic courses such as music, arts, dance, poetry, and band. The dramatic decrease in these aesthetic courses, and others, has also been attributed to the growing emphasis on standardization and high stakes testing (Smith & Rottenberg, 1991; US Department of Education, 2002). The marginalization of the arts in today's classrooms has limited the resources teachers and administrators have for developing students, both socially and emotionally. The loss of this valuable tool in student development has prompted many in the postmodern education movement to question the importance of an aesthetic and arts based curriculum. To postmodernists, courses of this type are the heart of any postmodern curriculum and allow students to explore what Pinar and Grumet refer to as "synthetical moments" (as cited in Slattery, 2006, p. 242).For Slattery (2006), the synthetical moment is a "synthesizing moment” where “there is a reconstruction of the self and an experience of solidarity of the intellect" (p. 242). In aesthetic inquiry, arts-based research, and the proleptic moment, Slattery (2006) provides seven approaches to explore curriculum development from a postmodern aesthetic perspective. To help us understand the importance of an art-based postmodern curriculum, Slattery develops these seven approaches through art, research, and philosophies of viewing education. The seven approaches include; "a review of postmodern art and architectural movements and their impact on society and culture, along with their political implications; a study of the interrelationship between postmodern philosophies and art; an analysis of texts that have provided a transition from the dominant quantitative paradigms of evaluation in schooling toward an aesthetic and qualitative understanding of curriculum and instruction; a study of the correspondences between aesthetic experiences and curriculum; a review of the phenomenological literature that understands knowledge as a human construction and social life as an enacted, meaning-embedded experience, inseparable from human beliefs, values, and creativity; an exploration of notions of knowledge acquisition and of thinking that are distinct from mainstream social and behavioral science; and understanding curriculum through arts-based educational research" (Slattery, 2006, p. 241-242). These approaches help lead to an understanding of an aesthetic postmodern curriculum.
Aesthetic Curriculum
A postmodern aesthetic curriculum focuses more on experiences that affirm an individual's creativity and uniqueness rather than on methodology to create "synthetic moments". Contrary to modern paradigms in curriculum, which focus "on rational discourse, time on task, lesson implementation, and objective evaluation," postmodernism places importance on dramatic, artistic, non-rational, and intuitive qualities within a person while learning (Slattery, 2006, p. 243). Currently, our society prioritizes mathematics, science, and reading as "the core of the curriculum" and neglects the heart of curriculum: "music, fine arts, drama, dance, poetry, speech, band, and painting" (Slattery, 2006, p. 243). Postmodern education encourages aesthetic reflections from the heart in educational inquiry. What would our educational institutions look like if curriculum leaders and teachers were "encouraged to recapture a poetic wisdom, to be suspicious of comfortable routines, to create provacative learning relationships, to see appreciation and affirmative engagement as a core task and to value wonder over suspicion, surrender over defensiveness and listening and attunement over self-promotion?" (Barrett, 2000, p. 244).
Aesthetic postmodern curriculum emphasizes learning through experiences because it encourages many possibilities without any restrictions. Like improvisation in jazz music, postmodern curriculum stresses the importance of spontaneity, in which "inspectional and clinical models" are replaced with "experiential" and "metaphorical reflection," as well as aesthetic inquiry (Slattery, 2006, p. 244). Educators become like jazz improvisers, who "cultivate an aesthetic that senses the dynamic unfolding of creative human action and appreciates the emergent, incomplete, mistake-ridden nature of human activity that often in retrospect leads to coherent, creative production. . . . what is appropriate for grasping social complexity is an aesthetic of the dynamics of unfolding, an aesthetic that values surrender, appreciation, trust and attunement as seeds that sprout dynamic, novel social action" (Barrett, 2000, p. 241). It requires building a common shared reality in search of the "self" within experiences. "Qualitative inquiry and research cannot be planned using modern concepts of positivism, nor can it be imposed uniformly upon students with statistical certainty" (Slattery, 2006, p. 244). For example, curriculum could be enhanced with artwork incorporating clay. However, with professional studio training the young artists could improve their work with clay, which in turn would place “art educators in a very good position to contribute to the generation of knowledge in this area that could help guide improvement in classroom practice” (Kindler, 2004, p. 230).
As educators, it is very important that students become capable of reflecting, analyzing, and discovering the world through different means; but in order for students to do so, curriculum leaders, according to Slattery (2006), "must begin by replacing inspectional and clinical models with experiential, autobiographical, and metaphorical reflection that utilizes multi- and extrasensory phenomena and perceptions.....to expand our understanding of the whole educative moment" (p. 244). To expand on Slattery’s thoughts, Clair Golomb, a psychologist with a long standing interest in the visual arts, conducted research on the origins of children’s use of clay in three dimensional art with children who had never before used clay to create actual sculptures with representational intent (Kindler, 2004). Golomb also noted that young children possess three-dimensional understanding versus lacking intellectual maturity according to other theories of young children and their creating art utilizing clay (Kindler, 2004). From the research, Golomb concluded that children merely lack the experience with the medium, practice, and the technical skills of working with clay (Kindler, 2004).
To support Golomb’s findings that young children possess a basic understanding of three dimensional art, Maxine Greene believed that all educators should integrate the arts into all levels of education (Slattery, 2006). Moreover, Yvonna Lincoln did not believe that students were “empty vessels” (as cited in Slattery, 2006, p. 255), and Max van Manen believed that, as summarized by Slattery (2006), students are “capable of rich inner lives and that their experience is worth eliciting and building on” (p. 255). What each educator, from Golomb to van Manen, was trying to say is that children as students, no matter what age, have the capability to learn and to use the arts as a method of expanding on their capacities to “reflect, analyze, and discover the world through different means” (Slattery, 2006). The following video is an example of how a school in New York used the creative classroom program to include art education into the curriculum. As a result, students have increased their knowledge, inquiry, and creativity.
Slattery (2006) expands upon Eisner's beliefs that through aesthetic learning a new zone of cognition must be entered where the big picture is of greatest importance, rather than all the small pieces that lead to the whole experience. In other words, the whole is "greater than the sum of" all the parts (Slattery, 2006, p. 244). He believed that the true measure of quality was based on the aesthetic experience. As teachers, we cannot simply grade students using worksheets and tests. Student learning should be based on their experiences and what develops based on those experiences. For educational inquiry to be complete, better modes of interpretation and description must be done as well as a deeper look into curriculum and instruction. Slattery (2006) used Eisner's writings to convey the idea that inclusion of aesthetic and qualitative approaches to inquiry "will contribute to the improvement of educational practice by giving us a fuller, more complex understanding of what makes schools and classrooms tick" (as cited in Slattery, 2006, p. 245)
In the article "Elliot W. Eisner, Connoisseurship, Criticism and the Art of Education", Smith (2005) discusses the importance of the teacher viewing teaching as an expression of art. Eisner believes that the way educators draw from different techniques to fit a particular situation is thinking in action (Smith, 2005). This ability to improvise a particular situation is what makes educators artists (Smith, 2005). Aesthetic postmodern curriculum can be very complex to understand and requires educators to view curriculum from a variety of perspectives. It allows students to explore and reflect. Only then can a postmodern aesthetic curriculum truly exist. Understanding aesthetic experiences is difficult for those in modern society who "conform to the logic of positivism, behaviorism, rationalism, and structural analysis," rather than synthetical experiences of "an aesthetic vision" (Slattery, 2006, p. 245). However, "wide-awakenness", a term coined by Maxine Greene, can bring self-understanding from the synthetical moments while engaged within a piece of artwork (Slattery, 2006, p. 252).
Postmodern curriculum moves away from the idea of the linear model of teaching and focuses completely on the individual and self-reflecting experiences of each individual. Slattery (2006) supports this statement when he states that "knowledge is not logically ordered and waiting to be discovered; rather, it is constructed in experiences of the whole body and being" (p.246). Instead, "the experience of disturbance, perturbation, contemporaneousness, or synthetical moments will inspire students to read, to research, to explore, to learn, to mediate, and to expand their understanding of the initial experience" (Slattery, 2006, p.246).
It is important to address the issue that if schools want to prepare students to be successful citizens, they must not forget that it is just as important to help students become human beings who are able to enjoy the existence of beauty around the world. Slattery (2006) explains the following: "The postmodern world demands awareness of the environment and openness to the deep ecology of learning" (p. 252). Students must be able to learn how to perceive the world in a different way and that language and communication goes beyond being able to speak. They must know that the art of expression has infinite resources, and by using the aesthetic curriculum, educators are providing students with the opportunity to enter a world full of learning. Slattery presents a quote from traditionalist Mortimer Adler to explain the importance of the learning environment in education: "Our concern with education goes beyond schooling...education is a lifelong process of which schooling is only a small part. Schooling should open the doors to the world of learning" (as cited in Slattery, 2006, p. 252). Herbert Kliebard warns that if arts-based subjects continue to decline, art expression and appreciation will be a domain understood by few humans. "The arts - music, painting, sculpture, poetry - [are] the highest forms of expression by which human beings convey their experience and their aspirations" (Kliebard, 1992a, p.3).
Peter Gamwell conducted an action research study asking: How do students create meaning through art experiences? In this study he found firsthand the benefits of implementing an arts-based curriculum. Much like the benefits seen in student learning when Gardner's multiple intelligences are applied within a curriculum, the theory of students' multiple intelligences serve as the guiding framework for arts-based classroom curriculum (Gamwell, 2005). Allowing students to excel in areas of interest and in learning styles that facilitate their academic understanding, art-based curriculum gives students the freedom to self-reflect through fine arts. Arts-based curriculum emphasizes students' experiences which have implications on a student's classroom practice (Gamwell, 2005). In referencing arts-based curriculum, Sylwester states, "[It] drives attention which drives learning and memory" (as cited in Gamwell, 2005, p. 361). When a student is engaged and immersed in an activity, their state of mind is active and their attention becomes undivided, thus enabling their intrinsic motivation to learn and explore (Gamwell, 2005). Therefore, the connection to emotional engagement is vital in an arts-based learning environment (Gamwell, 2005).
Examples of Arts-Based Activities
Students can interpret poetry through movement or dance and can then create dramatic interpretations of short stories. The art of dance can serve as a catalyst for creative writing assignments. Another example of an art-based activity is seen in soundtrack stories. In soundtrack stories students interpret a piece of music and write about it (Gamwell, 2005). Activism in art is another example of using aesthetics in arts-based curriculum (Springgay, 2010).Cultivating an appreciative way of knowing is an act of cultivating an aesthetic way of knowing, an aesthetic that values sensory awareness, perceptual acuity, attunement, wonderment, novelty, and emergence. Perhaps more importantly, an aesthetic way of knowing appreciates the awkward spaces existing between chaos and order, complexity and simplicity, certainty and uncertainty, to name a few dialectical relationships. Just as with the dialectical relationship of theory and practice, both entities are valued equally. However, if one should have an edge over the other, it would be practice over theory, for practice without theory is active and relevant, whereas theory without practice is abstract and lacking significance. It is in this in-between space, the and or the /(slash) that an aesthetic way of knowing unfolds in/sight into curriculum. It is in this in-between space that chaos is appreciated alongside order, complexity alongside simplicity, and uncertainty alongside certainty. These complex spaces are attuned to invention and the possibility of poetic wisdom. Our minds and bodies are inseparable, making perceptual awareness simultaneously felt, imagined and abstract. We actively create knowledge through sensing, feeling and thinking. Through the aesthetics of attunement, unfolding, and/or surrender, we linger in dynamic in-between spaces (Irwin, 2003).
Postmodern Artists and Their Expression of History
In an attempt to better understand his ideas of an aesthetic curriculum, Slattery (2006) shared his personal experiences of several art pieces. He sets out to explain the idea behind synthetic moments that self-realization can lead to. His first reflection was on the story of Autumn Rhythm by Jackson Pollock (1950).Slattery discusses how he first began to understand the postmodern aesthetic perspective through Pollock’s painting, Autumn Rhythm.
He describes how he felt a new experience upon viewing the painting. Slattery uses this story to show how an aesthetic experience can give someone a greater understanding
of self. It also shows how aesthetic inquiry can ignite students with a passion that they previously had not known existed just as Slattery started buying any book he could find on Pollock. "Knowledge is not logically ordered and waiting to be discovered; rather, it is constructed in experiences of the whole body and being" (Slattery, 2006, p. 246). Aesthetic experiences provide access to knowledge that other subjects of schooling cannot reach. As Suzuki, Fromm, and DeMartino suggest, “[t]he intellect may raise all kinds of questions – but to expect a final answer from the intellect is asking too much of it. The answer lies deeply buried under the bedrock of our being” (as cited in Slattery, 2006, p. 246). The study of art, music, poetry, or dance does not necessarily answer academic questions but it may touch students on a deeper, more personal level than other media and inspire a search for understanding in many areas of a student's life.
Slattery uses the works of Edward and Nancy Kienholz as an inspiration to create yet another synthetic moment. In 1972, Edward and Nancy Kienholz started working together; prior to this, Edward Kienholz worked alone (Slattery, 2006). The Kienholz's artistic popularity and purpose can be compared to Raskin's insights about the Beat poets, who "raged against a nation that by all outward appearances was content with itself and ostensibly relieved of the burden of self-reflection" (as cited in Slattery, 2006, p. 247). Kienholz's work is purposeful, and invokes feelings of empathy and guilt within the viewer of his work (Bulmer, nd).
With the concern of liberation of human beings and the contradictions between national policies and the military economy, Kienholz focused his work on revealing the contradictions and inspiring ethical reflection in the current global crisis (Slattery, 2006). "Inspired by their shared vision of the prophetic nature of their work, they created assemblages to express their outrage over child abuse, war, poverty, religious hypocrisy, sexism, and violence against Native Americans and other indigenous minority cultures" (Slattery, 2006, p. 247). They used common household items and industrial waste materials as medium for their work.
Edward and Nancy Kienholz are most well known for their work on John Doe and Jane Doe. "The images enabled them to assume the role of the prophet and challenge those who view their art to consider important social issues such as gender roles, violence, and subjugation" (Slattery, 2006, p. 248). One of the important aspects of art-based curriculum is self-reflection. Slattery (2006) discusses his self-reflection moment as he viewed these two art works. Part of the aesthetic curriculum is the connection that viewers make with experiences outside of the norm. This dimensionality allows the observer to interact with the piece and step away from what Suzi Gablik calls the "subject-object separation" found in most contemporary art (cited in Slattery, 2006, p. 248). Not only does the observer become the participant, it evokes an intense and ironic juxtaposition in a postmodern sense.
Moreover, educators must not view Keinholzs' art or any other art for that matter, only from their self-reflective perspective; they must find ways to educate their students in the art (pardon the pun) of self-reflection when viewing art. Educators can integrate an art lesson into their curriculum based on Keinholzs' art and compare the art to the gender roles in the United States in the 1950s, and still keep within the standards of the TEKS. For example, Section 113.41, Subsection 17; B, expects students to “identify the causes and effects of the prosperity in the 1950s" (Texas Education Agency, 2011). Educators could assign the students to compare the Keinholzs’ John Doe and Jane Doe to the lifestyles of the 1950s and how the current United States History textbook refers to the lifestyle that men were hardworking driven breadwinners and the women tended to the domestic home front (cooking, cleaning, having babies, etc.) (Danzer, G.A., Klor de Alva, J.J., Woloch, N., Wilson, L.E., 2007). However, the textbook also presents that not all women during this era were happy in their homemaking roles (Danzer, G.A., Klor de Alva, J.J., Woloch, N., Wilson, L.E., 2007). This is where the art becomes relevant in the classroom because it now engages the students to reflect on their own lives and how they perceive the current role of men and women in their lives. Some may still believe a woman’s place is in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant, and others may believe that a woman has just as much right to achieve business, political, and religious success, often only afforded to men.
Anselm Kiefer’s Lots Frau
Born in Germany two months before the end of World War II, Anselm Kiefer grew up during a time of continued German xenophobia, and shame, which shaped his view and desire to “ponder and deconstruct those aspects of twentieth-century German history that many would like to forget” (Slattery, p.248).
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat's work "delineates the violence that results when the culture and traditions of a people are erased" (Slattery, 2006, p. 251). Drawing from his own life experiences, Basquiat addresses the larger human concerns that permeate throughout our world. In some of his more popular works like Jack Johnson (1982), Untitled (1982), and La Columbia (1983), Basquiat can be described as celebrating black culture. In these paintings, flesh on the black body is falling away and the figures have been worked to the bone (Slattery, 2006). Black men often appear in his paintings as deformed or mutilated, suggesting a sign of absence. According to hooks, "Basquiat's work gives that private anguish artistic expression" (as cited in Slattery, 2006, p. 250). This artist's work seems to transcend the individual and address broader social issues and themes. With that, the dualities that underlie his artistic strategy suggest his position as a black man in the art world.
Phenomenology
Phenomenology is another important aspect of aesthetic inquiry and arts-based education. "Phenomenology...is based on the assumption that we cannot speculate about what beings are in themselves. Rather, the emphasis should be placed on possibility and becoming as a goal of the curriculum, for human consciousness can never be static" (Slattery, 2006, p.254). Curriculum writers, in other words, should always consider the learner and its possibility for success. The purpose of phenomenology is not to describe phenomena, but to understand the core meaning of its origins. Jean-Paul Sartre has argued that human consciousness (described as "being-for-itself") is such that it is an activity rather than a thing of substance (described as "being-in-itself") which is why possibility should be at the center of educational inquiry (Slattery, 2006, p. 254). A person in itself should be able to have diverse possibilities within a curriculum. “Phenomenology is a philosophy of consciousness that seeks description of how the world is experienced by persons" (Slattery, 2011, p. 8). Therefore, in developing meaning of personal experience we add to it new experiences that, in turn, shape all future possibilities based on previous personal experience. Although present moments reflect past experiences, each new moment is also charged with possibilities for new directions and new beginnings for all learners. For this reason it is extremely important that from the earliest years in education, students are allowed to express themselves through art. Students should not be assigned to perform different tasks following specific directions; on the contrary, teachers and other adults should move out of the way and let children express and experiment with the endless possibilities that art education can offer.In John Dewey’s Art as Experience, he explains how the aesthetic experience can stimulate new personal realizations (Slattery, 2006). He describes how a work of art can be "re-created every time it is aesthetically
An important phenomenological dimension of postmodern aesthetics is the realization that we gain meaning from events as they are encountered subjectively wherein knowledge is constructed and reconstructed through every new experience. For example, a student's home environment should be taken into consideration since that is where most of their knowledge and experience are obtained. By this logic, Slattery (2006) claims that, “a work of art truly exists only in the encounter” and art, like the curriculum, is a cycle of "becoming and recreating in each new situation" (p. 254). Every student should be given the opportunity to receive an education that will assist them in their search to discover within themselves their most powerful force of expression. If art is an important aspect of education, then as teachers, it is important to provide students with experiences that will support their unique strengths, gifts and talents. Teachers should learn not only to tolerate, but to celebrate all those wonderful innate abilities students bring with them to the classroom. Moreover, teachers can support their students and their abilities by creating assignments that not only bring out their artistic talents, but also satisfy the curriculum as mandated in the respective levels of standardization. By doing this, teachers and students create a learning environment in which students will be able to develop their real talents and hopefully find a better experience in connecting to the the core curriculum. Max van Manen, among other contemporary phenomenologists, has supported this rejection and contends that students inhabit rich and vivid inner lives that include experiences worth building on (Slattery, 2006). Slattery summarizes van Manen's argument that, unlike common pedagogical perspectives, “pedagogy is a form of interactive relationships rather than a bag of tricks to be assembled in the teaching process” (Slattery, 2006, p. 255).
In its application to artistic-aesthetic expression, phenomenology has roots in Cubism (Slattery, 2006). It was abundant during the twentieth century, along with abstract expressionism, and is opposite to the traditional styles of the High Renaissance. More “traditional” understandings of art taught that the subject of a painting is decided before painting begins, with the goal of recreating a realistic representation of what was intended (Slattery, 2006). Cubism, however, involves the deconstruction, analysis, and reassembly of the subject matter, resulting in a faceted image that represents multiple viewpoints (Rewald, 2011).
Like Cubism, phenomenology as an artistic expression focuses more on the process involved in creating a work. Artists should grow with their work and achieve their possible capabilities and come to a greater understanding of self. Art and education should be a process of “becoming” that allows for reflectiveness (Slattery, 2006, p. 255). In comparison to how a student thinks, one would compare the idea of allowing a painter to reflect upon his work of art, to a student's reflection of his own learning. Experiencing phenomenology as an artistic expression, as both an artist and an observer, causes a person to notice the same expressiveness in their own world (Slattery, 2006). In the classroom this knowledge of self can lead to a new opportunity to promote social change for both teachers and students, as it begins when individuals change. Indeed, creativity can still be a key trait for all students to inherit in their classrooms. As teachers and students go through this transformation in order to understand the self, new discussions about morality and social justice can begin. Moral education is not about teaching rules and regulations, but rather about teaching kids to know who they are in relation to those around them, as is appropriate for their age (Slattery, 2006).
"The content of the curriculum is the individual in the process of becoming that which he or she has not yet been but is capable of becoming… various disciplines become part of the form and content" (Slattery, 2006, p. 257). In the post-modern curriculum, inquiry and reflection merge with lecturing (Slattery, 2006). Teachers can no longer merely “feed" students content as this will not inspire or develop their creative and critical thinking. Therefore, students must interact with and question the content which they are learning to understand how the experience has changed them. Teachers can never feel that they are done learning and searching within themselves if they are to remain effective at inspiring students to continue learning (Slattery, 2006). In order for teachers to inspire students to be lifelong learners, they too must be lifelong learners. This also means that teachers must readily critique and reflect on their own teaching and strategies in the classroom, and allow students to do the same. Critical reflection is key to aesthetic experiences and leads to "praxis" - a knowing that becomes an opening to possibilities and empowerment (Slattery, 2006, p. 257). Praxis can be viewed as reflecting on what you have learned or experienced and then looking back to where your understanding of yourself began. In essence, teachers must also be willing to learn along with their students in order to experience inquiry learning.
The implication of aesthetics for the postmodern curriculum is that "transformation and learning are stimulated by a sense of future possibilities and sense of what might be" (Slattery, 2006, p. 257).The postmodern curriculum must include "an awareness and sensitivity toward many environments - physical, psychological, spiritual, and social" (Slattery, 2006, p. 258). Postmodern curriculum emphasizes "the primacy of experience, the merging of form and content, the recursion and convergence of time, the celebration of the self-conscious individual, and the understanding of the phenomenological experience" (Slattery, 2006, p. 258). Aesthetic media can be used to enhance the curriculum and encourage self-expression and reflection; in addition, it can encourage critical thinking and bring to light many social injustices. “Films, poetry, visual images, music, dance, drama, and literature are vehicles for engendering the jolt to the unconscious that leads to the autobiographical narrative which is essential if mere schooling is to become educative and transformative" (Slattery, 2006, p. 260).
"What Does Rape Have to Do with Education?"
Rape is one social issue that aesthetic pieces can effectively bring into awareness. Slattery (2006) discusses how it is important to point out that rape is not sex. “Rape is an act of violence, power, and degradation, not pleasure” (Slattery, 2006, p. 262). When asked, “What does rape have to do with education?” (Slattery, 2006, p. 259), Slattery contends that together we must “connect the dots between environmental degradation, violence, racism, lynchings, and child abuse if there is any hope for justice and proleptic experiences in our society, and in ourselves” (Slattery, 2006, p. 262). Rape, along with lynchings, such as child abuse, racism, and violence, are powerful negative motivators that inspire communications often through the arts. While these topics can often produce powerful, meaningful pieces, they are often avoided in the classroom. It is important to discuss these very personal pieces and give them an opportunity to bring about awareness. Also, we need to recognize that in many cases these abuses occur in our country, state, city, and even in some cases next door, not only in some far off land.“The psychosexual dynamics of racial subjugation, gendered violence, political domination, and hegemonic curriculum management must be understood as a seamless and seamy logic. And a common denominator is rape” (Slattery, 2006, p. 261). Many things relate to education and curriculum, regardless of how irrelevant they seem to teaching. The mistreatment of the Earth and natural resources is also a form of environmental rape that is prevalent in society today. Most people in society never notice that we as humans are rapists as we dispose of our trash each day. We have a form of cultural psychosis that has allowed violent crimes to take place in front of cheering crowds. Also, promotion of wars and protests could always be blamed on the discontent of people and the inability to converse peacefully. It is necessary to look back on historical events, both good and bad, as well as the present happenings worldwide, to learn about injustices that are still constantly occurring. “Education must combat the ignorance that leads to this horrific injustice” (Slattery, 2006, p. 262). Rape and sexual trauma are sometimes associated with the very institutions that you would never associate with sex: schools, churches, and role models like coaches and Scout leaders (Slattery, 2006). “Repression of the body, sexual fantasies, uncontrollable sexual responses, and guilt and anxiety about sexuality are all part of the educational experience of students who sit in school desks,” making sex a valid educational topic (Slattery, 2006, p. 265). Slattery has created art pieces that demonstrate his childhood and his Catholic educational experience. Slattery connects religion and sex by using a play on words. He uses the word "ejaculation" to describe “short and spontaneous prayerful outbursts” that were encouraged in his Catholic school upbringing. One piece, titled 10,000 Ejaculations, uses 10,000 communion wafers to represent the prayerful ejaculations of his youth.
The Arts and Activism
Curriculum designers who promise that their products will increase test scores and obedient students are part of the reason that students today seem often incapable of being reflective and creative in their schooling and lives (Slattery, 2006). This normalizing of curriculum also creates a rift between the majority and the “others” who do not neatly fit into social constructs. One reason for having art in life and in schools is to make people aware of inequities and abuse in our world. Art is a powerful teaching tool and should be used frequently. Art allows a person to express what they are feeling and how they have processed a certain situation, event, or information they have received. Not only should students be allowed the opportunities to create art, but they must also be able to experience many art forms to help them better understand the world in which they live. “The goal of activism and teaching must be to uncover violence and abuse in all of its manifestations and work for justice and compassion in our schools and society” (268). Slattery discusses the importance of reviewing the past in order to build off it to move past it. This is true of individuals as well as society. One way that Slattery (2006) suggests we review the past is to examine racial and gender violence by reflecting on the staggering amount of lynchings that occurred in the U.S. in the early 20th century. Slattery (2006) also explains how he uses a documentary film that investigates lynchings and hate crimes and the fact that these events were celebrated by the white community. In addition to documentary films, Slattery (2006) shows the 2003 film Strange Fruit, which is based on a poem that was written by Abel Meeropol and made famous through the singing of Billie Holiday. Holiday's 1939 song poignantly exposes the lynching of African Americans and American racism. Once again, through art students are given an experience that causes them to reflect on their own thinking.In debating current topics and voicing opinions, activism as art is another form of aesthetic postmodern curriculum. Stephanie Springgay (2010) uses knitting as an "aesthetic civic engagement" through touch in efforts to reconceptualize feminist pedagogy (p.113). Activism as art examines resisting new youth subcultures. Activist knitting projects encourage political and/or interpersonal engagement that is connective. Projects of this type highlight ways one can reconceptualize feminist pedagogy. Feminist pedagogy may be typically viewed as dealing with feminist theory; however, it is the pedagogy that addresses civil and human rights from many different classes, cultures, and identities. Springgay (2010) advocates for activism as art through touch by implementing and engaging in knitting groups. Knitting groups or clubs are increasingly becoming popular among youth (Springgay, 2010). Youth citizenship can take place by students coming together and debating social issues, making social arrangements, and creating political forums, all while engaging in the pastime of knitting (Springgay, 2010). In activism as a form of arts-based curriculum, young people are able to reflect on their own subjectivity, imaginations, and their communities to, in turn, enable new conditions for living their lives (Springgay, 2010). Teachers can teach activism or reconceptualized gender roles through arts-based curriculum such as knitting.
Final Thoughts
Aesthetics stems from the Greek root word aisth, and especially the verb aisthànomai, to mean feeling through a heuristic act of perception. It holds, then, that curriculum specialists desiring an aesthetic approach to curriculum would be responsive to all aspects of a setting: smells, voices,shadows, silences, gestures, colours, placement of objects, glances, utterances, lighting, and so much more. Their attunement to others would be apparent through their presentation of ideas (or lessons or meetings) that arouse feelings, energy and interest in others. Together, teachers and students, or teachers and administrators, would linger in a sense of satisfaction or pleasure knowing that the decision(s) they made were, in essence, beautiful decisions (Irwin, 2003).As an approach to learning environments, learning activities, and decision-making, an aesthetic of unfolding in/sights would allow for awareness of sensory appreciation and understanding. Rather than being preoccupied with explanations or rationales, educators would be closely attuned to their tacit knowledge, accepting that knowledge isn’t entirely verbal and thereby includes knowledge derived through one’s senses and intuition. Knowledge is created through these alternative forms of inquiry, and as educators, it seems that sensitizing ourselves to these ways of knowing opens up deeper understanding toward our day-to-day negotiations with others and ourselves (Irwin, 2003).
References
Barrett, F. J. (2000). Cultivating an aesthetic of unfolding: Jazz improvisation as a self-organizing system. In S. Linstead & H. Hopfl (Eds.), The aesthetics of organization (pp. 228-245). London: Sage.Basquait, Jean-Michel (1982). Jack Johnson. Retrieved from http://www.soho-art.com/cgi-bin/shop/shop.pl?fi...ction=form
Basquait, Jean-Michel (1983). La Columbia.Retrieved from http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/28/16/28_1...quiat.html
Basquait, Jean-Michel (1984). Untitled (Skull). Retrieved from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e1/U...C_1984.jpg
Bulmer, Marge, nd. Edward Kienholtz. Retrieved from http://www.artscenecal.com/ArticlesFile/Archive/Articles1996/Articles0796/EKienholz.html
Chillyb21. (2011, September 19). No child left behind political cartoon [Web log comment]. Retrieved from http://chillyb21.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/no-child-left-behind-political-cartoon-2/
Danzer, G.A., Klor de Alva, J.J., Woloch, N., Wilson, L.E. (2007). The Americans: Reconstruction to the 21st century. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell, (pp. 641 - 642).
Gamwell, P. (2005). Intermediate students' experiences with an arts-based unit: An action research. Canadian Journal of Education, vol. 28, pp. 359-383.
Irwin, R. L. (2003). Toward an aesthetic of unfolding in/sights through curriculum . Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies, 1(2),
JacksonPollock.com. Jackson Pollock. Retrieved November 15, 2011, from http://www.jacksonpollock.com/index.php
Kiefer, Anselm. Lots Wife. Retrieved from http://www.clevelandart.org/exhibcef/consexhib/html/aboLots.html
Kienholz Biography. Edward and Nancy Kienholz Portrait. Retrieved November 15, 2011, from http://www.lalouver.com/html/kienholz_bio.html
Kindler, A.M. (2004). Introduction: Development and learning in art. In Eisner, E.W. & Day, M.D. Handbook of research and policy in art education (pp. 227-232). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Kliebard, Herbert. M. (1992a). Forgiving the American Curriculum: Essays in Currculum History and Theory. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Lighthouse Films New York. Creative Classrooms Visual Arts Program, New York. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikOJIEhL5Po&feature=player_embedded.
Picaso, P. (1910). Girl with a Mandolin. Retrieved from http://www.artchive.com/artchive/P/picasso/tellier.jpg.html
Pollock, Jackson. (1950). Autumn Rhythm.Retrieved from http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/57.92
Rewald, S. (2011). Hielburn timeline of art history: Cubism. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved from http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cube/hd_cube.htm#thumbnails
Slattery, P. (2006). Curriculum development in the postmodern era, 2nd. Ed. New York: Routledge.
Slattery, P. (2011). Glossary of Terms. (unpublished document). Available on Blackboard.
Smith, M. K. (2005) Elliot W. Eisner, connoisseurship, criticism and the art of education. The Encyclopaedia of Informal Education. Retrieved from www.infed.org/thinkers/eisner.htm.
Smith, M. L. & Rottenberg, C. (1991), Unintended consequences of external testing in elementary schools. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 10: 7–11.
Springgay, S. (2010). Knitting as an aesthetic of civic engagement: Reconceptualizing feminist pedagogy through touch. Feminist Teacher, 20(2), 111-123.
Texas Education Agency. (2011). Chapter 113. Texas essential knowledge and skills for social studies: Subchapter C. High school. Retrieved from
http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/rules/tac/chapter113/ch113c.html#113.41
The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. (2010). Jean-Michel Basquiat. Retrieved from http://basquiat.com/
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. (2011). Anselm Kiefer. Retrieved from http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/show-full/bio/?artist_name=Anselm%20Kiefer&page=1&f=Name&cr=1
U.S. Department of Education. (2002). Learning in the arts and student academic and social development. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
doi: 10.1111/j.1745-3992.1991.tb00210.x
Wikipedia. (2011). G. I. Joe. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Joe